WEBVTT - Ep. 198: Turkey Stories - Spring's Noble Decree (Part 1) 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:09.119 My best turkey hunting stories don't always feature the best calling, 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:12.520 or the ideal set up, or even the desired outcome. 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:17.560 They include moments like getting superpowers from electric shock. Okay, 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:19.840 maybe that isn't all true, but this is my story, 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:21.600 and I believe I'll tell it how I want to. 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:27.360 There must be DNA in humans coded to anticipate the spring, 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.520 and it feels like some might even have DNA wired 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:35.519 for telling turkey stories. The Northern Hemisphere's South Stepping Waltz 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:39.199 is a celebration to many types of folks, but to 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:42.760 none more than the hunter of the wild turkey. The 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:46.639 most noble spring indicator of the wild things that audibly 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.920 speak is the gobble of the wild turkey, which, by 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:54.280 all measurable variables able to be assessed by humans, it's 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:58.520 become vividly apparent this gobble is of higher rank than 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.440 of all nature's claraty of trumpets. 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.160 But then again, maybe the turkey hunters are biased. 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:10.880 This is episode one of the Bear Grease Turkey story series. 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:16.440 We've gathered six storytellers from Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Georgia. 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.520 We've got a best selling novelist, a TikTok celebrity, an 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:25.679 undercover wildlife agent, a museum curator, a Mississippi gas company man, 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:30.959 and a ninety two year old Appalachian mountain hunter. Turkey 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.480 story is just hit different in March, and I really 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:36.560 doubt that you're gonna want to miss this one. 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:39.360 I don't know what it is about that bird that 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.039 really sticks out in my mind. I guess it's more 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.039 the friendship than the bird. It's a testament to that 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:57.640 good medicine that is spending time in the outdoors. 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.200 My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:06.200 Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.679 for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll. 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:11.040 Tell the story. 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:14.120 Of Americans who live their lives close to the land. 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:20.480 Presented by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:24.040 fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:38.120 places we explore. The story of the wild turkey in 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.640 North America is one of ups and downs, some of 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:45.000 it natural, some of it man induced. The time of 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.359 your birth often determines your outlook on the bird as 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.560 a resource, and it's the people that use them that 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:56.680 have historically valued them. The Most Native Americans use their meat, bones, 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:01.000 and feathers in practical ways, but also sacred the birds. 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.000 Early Europeans found the place stacked with an estimated ten 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.680 million turkeys and used them as a plentiful, life saving 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:12.760 food source, but market hunting the eighteen hundreds would almost 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:17.800 extirpate them, wiping them from ecological memory, their numbers dwindling 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:22.160 down to thirty thousand birds contined wide by the nineteen thirties, 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.880 but the modern conservation movement has helped restore them to 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:30.799 around seven million birds today, and they've even been introduced 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.040 into areas in the Western US they never inhabited pre 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:35.320 European settlement. 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:37.800 Modern turkey numbers. 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.560 In the East peaked in the late nineteen nineties and 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.960 early two thousands, right when I was growing up. 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:46.000 However, in the last. 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:49.680 Twenty years, turkey numbers have declined in many areas in 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.320 the eastern United States, none more than in my home 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.960 state of Arkansas. If there's one thing I've learned from 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:00.720 my grandfather, Lewin Nukom, who spent the last thirty five 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.400 years of his life lamenting the loss of the bob 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:07.480 white quail, it's that it's not wise to put your 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:12.560 hope and passion into a ground nesting bird. But for 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.320 some of us it's a little too late. We love turkeys. 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.440 Most of the wildlife stories in our times are positive, 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:25.840 but of late we've been in the valley of what 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.800 we hope is a cycle. Turkey numbers are on the 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.880 decline in many areas, but I think it's producing the 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:36.360 generation of people that truly value the wild. Turkey scarcity, 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:41.480 or even perceived scarcity, is producing appreciation and action for 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.880 turkey and turkey habitat, maybe more than ever. 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:46.880 Let's get to the stories. 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:52.360 Our first storyteller is from Leland, Mississippi, and we're sitting 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:57.840 in the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum. Billy Johnson is as 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:01.159 Mississippi as a cypress and muddy water. 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.400 This story is about a bird he named the blue. 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:08.520 Yodler, but you'll see it's really about a man iconic 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:10.920 in Billy's life, a riverman. 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:19.599 I'm Billy Johnson and I'm the director of the Missippi 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:26.240 Wildlife Heritage Museum in Leyland, Mississippi. I started hunting on 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:29.440 a place in the Mississippi River that's on the Arkansas 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.799 side of the river, and there was an old black 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.320 man that had lived on born on the island, lived 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.520 on the island. His name was Clay Matthews, and he 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:45.400 had a single shot twelve gage shotgun with about a 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:50.279 thirty inch barrel. And he believed that when the hen 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.520 got ready to do business with the gobbler, that she 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.400 wasn't gonna yelp but four times. And you know most 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:02.200 of the time people calling or up five times. You know, 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.840 that would be the secret. But anyway, you know, when 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:07.599 I was a little kid, you know, he'd tell me 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:09.800 about you know, when you deer hunting, you want to 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:12.000 get behind a tree and look around it. When you're 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.520 turkey hunt you got to get a tree wider than 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.120 you are and you sit sit face, you know, facing the. 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:17.680 Turkey and all. 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:22.320 So anyway, as the years went by, I mean I 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.159 turkey hunted a good bit, but I got to where. 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:28.679 I liked the crappie finish a lot better. 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.920 One year, we got thirteen inches of rain in three days, 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.240 and the lake came up six or seven feet and run. 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:38.880 The crappery fishing. 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.039 It's a lot of little places up in the hills 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:45.120 of Mississippi that used to have a store in a 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.320 post office and maybe at one point of school, and 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.599 it just got got down to where there the towns 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.920 just went away. And usually what would happen, what happened 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.080 to start with is wherever it was a spring looked, 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:01.160 where it was water in the hills, you know, it 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:05.160 would it would, it would be little towns would spring up. 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.560 And then his farming became more capital intensive and less 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.960 labor intensive, they just you know, shrunk back down. And 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.760 one of those places that we hunt up in Holmes County, Mississippi, 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.720 it's a place where they had planted all the cotton 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:24.240 fields and pines, and it was some tall hardwood ridges 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:28.560 behind behind the pines. There was a big gobbler that 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.040 would that would would gobble on one. 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:35.120 Of those big hardwood ridges, and he uh. 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:39.680 He'd get real excited and almost like he was yodling 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.800 in the middle of the goblins. And so I nicknamed 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:47.240 him the Blue Yodler. But you couldn't call. If you 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.680 tried to call to him, he wouldn't come. I hunted 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:55.440 the turkey twenty one days, and it was like I 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:59.120 stepped into a different world from a crappee fishing point 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:03.000 of view to the turkey hunting. And I would have 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.360 to try to guess which way the turkey was gonna 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:10.080 go that morning and not call, and a big storm 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:14.480 came up. One morning he gobbled two hundred and sixty 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:19.640 seven times, and finally it was just a day loge 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:22.600 I'm talking about. When I started walking out of the woods, 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.080 my boots got full of water, and you know this, 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:29.120 and that I just didn't know how, you know, when 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.040 you got a three hundred and sixty degree area in 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.000 the woods and you trying to figure out which way 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:40.200 that turkey's gonna walk that next morning. Finally I lucked 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.760 up and he hooked up with another gobbler, and uh, 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:48.520 they hadn't gobbled that morning, and so I started calling 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:53.520 and the other goblin was answering and made a complete 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:58.559 circle around me, and I mean, I didn't have that 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:03.800 good place to hide, and as they would gobble from 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:05.720 a little bit farther round, I'd had to kind of 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:10.360 try to ease around, ease around, And I finally saw 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:12.000 the gobler. 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.280 Coming and killed it. 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.480 And it was the big gobbler that I'd been hunting, 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:19.320 you know, for twenty one days. 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:20.959 And for the. 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.080 Rest of that day until when I went to sleep, 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:26.920 I was just on top of the world. And I 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:29.480 woke up the next morning time to go turkey hunting, 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:32.800 And about ten minutes after I woke up, it hit 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:34.760 me that I didn't have that turkey to hunt anymore. 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:37.400 And it was just like a. 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.760 Complete loss of what to do about how to try 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:44.160 to kill the turkey. Finally killing the turkey and your 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.520 old cloud nine. And the next morning you realize that 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:52.120 it's over, and it just just complete, you know, I 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:56.640 don't know if it's disappointment, but just just sad that 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:57.440 that it's ended. 0:09:57.840 --> 0:09:59.120 You know, when a. 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.400 Deer or a turkey here are a big bass that 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:06.720 you lose, or whatever takes your mind over, completely takes 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.160 your mind over, and you know all of your thoughts 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:14.079 are about that, you know where you you're thinking about 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.960 it when you're awake and dreaming about it when you're sleeping, 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.000 and you know, that's the way I was with with 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:25.240 that turkey. I think about that, that that old that 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.600 old black man Clay Matthews a lot. He was the 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:33.680 last of those lamp lighters. They had floating lamps, caroseen 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:37.079 lamps that marked the channel and the river. He would 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:41.199 row out there and fill the lamps up with Caroseene 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:42.839 and you know this and that, and then it's another 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.040 guy living on another island south there, north of there. 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.480 They would have those those little areas. But I often 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:53.800 think about how simple his life was. You know, he 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:56.960 had a he had a garden by his house and 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.839 had tin around the bottom and you know, fenced in 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.560 where the deer, you know, couldn't get in there. And 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:06.280 he raised hogs and chickens, and he hunted, you know, 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.000 he hunted squirrels and the turkeys, and you know, his 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:13.520 wife fished, and I mean they lived off of what 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:19.679 the river and the island afforded. There he would always 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.160 kill a couple of big gobblers the last week or 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:25.720 two of the season, which would be like from the 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.800 twentieth of April for the first of night. He knew 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:34.080 where some mulberry trees were, and those turkeys would come 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:37.800 once the mulberries got right, and he knew just to 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:41.840 set up in there around those trees, and he knew 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:49.319 turkey hunting inside out, and he was self talked. One 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:53.800 of my prize possessions. We opened this wildlife museum in Leyland. 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:56.000 A guy that used to hunt with us on that 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:00.520 island came in with a paper bag. He said, here, 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.920 I've had this long enough. And it was Clay Matthew's 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:08.920 turkey call box call, and whoever made that call had 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.280 put it together instead of gluing it together, he'd used 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.360 those little cobbler tacks like somebody working on in the 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:19.400 shoe shop used. So, I mean, it's no telling where 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.319 he got it or whatever. But but after Clay died, 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:25.880 you know, he went in his house and found that 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:27.320 found that old turkey call. 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:29.800 So he died in the. 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.520 Late seventies, so I mean he lived on that island, 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:37.160 you know, his whole life. It was a whiskey maker, 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:41.720 real famous bootlegger up there named named Perry Martin, and 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.439 Clay made whiskey for Perry Martin and uh, and it 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:49.160 was just kind of the way of life on the river, 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.480 I know, Clay. Clay told me that before they had 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:56.640 outboard motors, that the three most important things on the 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:01.160 river was flower, tobacco, and whiskey. And then once they 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.840 had got to use an outboard motors in gasoline, so 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:09.120 that was the foremost important things. But we had a 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:13.120 drug store and we sold garden seeds and plants and stuff, 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.200 and my daddy would fly up there in the spring 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.920 the turkey hunt, and he would bring clay like cabbage 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:23.640 plants and sweet potato plants, and enough seeds. 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:24.880 You know, for his garden and stuff. 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.320 So between his chickens and his hogs, and caught what 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:30.520 he shot, what his wife caught. 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.000 You know, they ate what they had. They used to 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:35.520 have what they called blue. 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:41.240 Logs, and they were like cypress. Mostly the river would 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.920 change and the current would change and those things would 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:47.080 shoot up. He would tie them up on the bank. 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.360 All of the rivermen that collected those logs for the 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:55.560 lumber companies had their own knot. Other words, if the 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.439 timber buyer came up there, he could look at the 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.760 knot hold them together and know who they belonged to. 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:06.040 That was something that Clay Clay did for money. And 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:10.400 the other thing he trapped bobcats and uh, you know 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.480 when spring came and he had all his hides, he 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:15.440 had put him on his back and he would take 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.520 his boat go across that white river cut off walk 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.440 across Big Island, and somewhere out in the middle of 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:23.480 Big Island. 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:25.080 Was a huge hollow tree. 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:29.440 He had cooking utensils and stuff in that tree in 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.800 a lantern, you know, care thing, and he'd spend the 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:35.480 night there, and then he had walked to the other 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:37.800 side of Big Island, and a friend of his had 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.480 take him across, and he would go to Arkansas City 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:42.120 and sell his furs. 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:46.560 And come back. Clay was a man of nature. 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:49.680 In other words, he would go out in the fall 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:54.840 and according to high high off the ground the hornets 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:57.280 nests were, he would predict whether it was going to 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.800 be a coal winner or warm winner or whatever. The 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:02.880 higher they were up in the tree, the colder the 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.120 winter was gonna be. If they were low, it was 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:07.840 gonna be a warm winner. And in those days, I 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.120 mean we had a we had a fill turkey season. 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:16.280 But before they started having that fall turkey season. All 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:21.560 of the guys in my dad's generation were big squirrel hunters, 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:23.400 and they a lot of them. 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.360 They hunted with twenty two rifles. 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:30.720 And Clay could clean squirrels like you wouldn't believe how 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.200 fast he could clean them, and wouldn't be a hair on, 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.360 but he would. He would rub his hands over those 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.120 those squirrel hides in a corner. 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:43.160 To ever, how much how thick the hair. 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.320 Was, he could predict what the winter winter was gonna 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.000 be whether it was gonna be cold or not. 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:55.560 So I mean he learned what he knew from nature itself, 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:56.640 you know. 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.240 And you think, in this day and time, with all 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.080 this instant this communication and all this stuff, how rich 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:04.080 a life he had. 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:06.760 People like Clay. 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:12.280 Matthews were living in a world that was rapidly changing. 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.680 It didn't change for him, but the rest of the 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:17.600 world around it. 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.040 In this world we live in now, with the Internet 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:28.280 and Instagram and Twitter and emails and text and all that, 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.720 it makes me wonder what life ever get. 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:35.720 To be like it was with him living on those isles. 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.360 It's clear that when Billy thinks about turkey hunting, it's 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:48.280 filtered through the life of Clay Matthews. The story of 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.200 the Blue Yodler had nothing to do with the man 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.560 on the surface. That is, it happened long after Clay 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:58.720 had passed away, But still Billy can't talk about him 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:00.240 without talking about Clay. 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.000 What an incredible life he lived. 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.320 And Billy did a good job of describing how an 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:11.240 individual animal at times can overtake you. As frustrating as 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.160 it can be, the older I get I realize how 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:15.880 unique those times are. 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:17.760 It makes me grateful. 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:21.679 If you're near Leland, Mississippi, you're gonna want to stop 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:26.040 by the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum. It's truly an incredible 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:27.480 place that will impress you. 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:29.280 Tell them that I sent you. 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.560 I wish every state had one of these, and I 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:36.480 wish every state had a Billy Johnson too. He's done 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:44.120 an incredible job. Our next storyteller is named Jack Hall. 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:49.080 He's from Tennessee. If there ever was a living turkey 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.560 hunting legend, it's him. And it's not because he had 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.199 a TV show, wrote a book, or got a turkey slam. 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.280 In some ways, it's a shame to even introduce you 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.320 to him in this way. I asked the man to 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:06.240 tell me one of his favorite turkey stories. He really 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:10.840 deserves more. Jack is ninety two years old. I met 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.960 him through my friend Russ Arthur, who will hear from 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.320 At the end. Russ says that Jack was one of 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:21.960 the original true mountain turkey hunters in East Tennessee. Jack 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:25.960 ran Hall Chevrolet in Cleveland, Tennessee. He had the resources 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.760 to travel and hunt in easier places, but he never did. 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:34.760 He loved the mountains. Here's Jack with some history and 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:40.840 a funny story. 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:48.760 Yeah, okay, Well I'm Jack Hall and I live in Cleveland, Tennessee, 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.720 and I was born in thirty one. 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:53.200 I'm ninety two. 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:57.880 I started hunting the mountains when I was about ten 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:00.919 years old when we moved here. My dad was a 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:05.960 big hunter and fishermen. But when he hunted, we didn't 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:09.639 have turkeys here, but he was shown. When I started 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.280 hunting the mountains, it was squirrel hunting. That's all we did. 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:17.440 We didn't have a turkey season back there. We'd run 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.159 those ridges, squirrel hunted. What I think of that day, 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:23.919 I think, why did we do that? But uh, but 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:25.520 we loved being into the mountains. 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:26.680 Then. 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:31.560 I suppose when I was twenty five, thirty years old, 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:37.520 we started turkey hunting. Oh for many years, they only 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.960 had like a two day hunt maybe three times a year, 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.760 and that's all. That's all the turkey hunting did. I 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:47.879 used to hunt a lot with a fred about it 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:51.840 worked at Bowl Water and his name was Clyde Steiner. 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:56.320 And uh, one time I decided I'd get one on him. 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:58.239 I was all the time trying to pull one on him. 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:01.959 Be he said his family said he was gullible because 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:06.800 I was all the time getting something. But uh, but anyway, 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:10.760 I walked in this place and he was going to 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:13.520 pick me up later, you know. I told him give 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:16.199 me about two or three hours and come down and 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:19.199 pick me up. So I walked a good ways about 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:23.040 two miles in, and uh, what I'd done is I 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:25.280 had a friend about it had a bunch of eb us, 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:28.080 and I asked him he'd give you a couple of 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:31.720 evu eggs, and I bought him from me and I 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:35.080 got a gas mask, and uh, I put those m 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.280 u eggs in and packed newspapers a ready and everything 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.280 through an open shoulder and uh, and I built a 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.480 desk about that big around and I put these two 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:49.399 inbu exit. Before I put the exit, I said it 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:52.280 that they could call turkeys for about an hour, you know. 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:54.840 So it looked like the desk was hued, you know. 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.440 And then I put those two eggs in. And when 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:02.960 I went out, he I med eve. He said, you 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.080 do the good. I said no, but you would not 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:08.480 believe what I failed. And he said, what do you find? 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:11.840 He said, I found a nest back there. I don't 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.919 know what it is. I said that it must have 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:18.639 been a dinosaur egged there's two of them, innut it. 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:21.200 And he kept questioning me about that. He said, I 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:23.720 don't want to see them. I said, it's about a 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:26.560 mile or two back in there. He said, I don't care. 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.240 Let's go. I want to see it. So we took off, 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.360 walked and walked and all its uphill all the way 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:35.520 to it. And when we got there, you'd have to 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:39.040 you'd have to dore him to appreciate it, because he's fuddy. Anyway, 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:42.159 he looked at that legs. Soon as he walked up, 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:47.280 he said, what in the name of God? 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:48.680 And I started. 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:50.240 I said, I don't door. 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:51.840 I've never seen anything like it. 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:54.399 He's and I got down there and had a stick 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:58.240 and I said, he said, don't move that thinking he said, 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:00.399 I don't believe it's a legg He said, I believe 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:05.800 it's a bomb. Somebody believe there was are bombs. I said, well, 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:09.800 I don't believe her bomb. Anyway, I had more fun 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:11.960 with him about to do it at it. We took 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:16.240 him back to town and he had a workshop. We 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:19.320 took him out there and he kept saying, don't touch 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:22.520 those things, and I cared him. He said, I still 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:26.639 believe her bomb. I said, give me a drill. That 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:30.120 he fussed about that and I drilled it. He saw 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:33.480 it was an ad and that I got to think 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:36.600 him later, I better tell him better. That he was 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:39.720 older than me. Thought he'd lively have a heart attack. 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:42.440 So I called him and told him. But that's what 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:45.040 his his family told him. I heard of all the 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:48.320 telephone that that he said. I can't believe you always 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:54.880 believe him. Yeah, I told him I was afraid he'd 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:58.159 have hearts. That well. I could tell a lot of 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:00.800 stories about killing turkeys, but I thought i'd. 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:07.359 Tell what about but he just knew they were bobs. 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:11.119 You know. I still would love to turkey out in 0:23:11.200 --> 0:23:14.720 the mountains, but but uh, legs just won't let me 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:19.359 do it any boy. It's been about three years ago, 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:22.919 and I have no idea how many of you, but 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:25.480 I'd always killed one or two a year, you know, 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:29.600 but that's all you could kill, you know. I've never 0:23:29.760 --> 0:23:34.000 traveled much and done in turkey out and just just oh. 0:23:33.840 --> 0:23:40.119 Good, Jack Hall, What an incredible guy, and what a 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:44.200 sense of humor the old em you ag trick. And 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:48.119 I hadn't even told you that Jack is an expert 0:23:48.400 --> 0:24:01.919 ballroom dancer too. Well, I hate to turn the table 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:05.879 too quickly and disorient you. But our next storyteller is 0:24:05.920 --> 0:24:11.040 about six point five decades younger than Jack. Macy Watkins 0:24:11.160 --> 0:24:14.959 is from Gordon, Georgia. She's an artist, a hunter, and 0:24:15.000 --> 0:24:18.520 a fly fisherman. I think you'll enjoy her story about 0:24:18.560 --> 0:24:23.680 gaining superpowers from a hunt. And yep, Macy is our 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:25.840 resident turkey hunting TikToker. 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:36.320